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It all
began millennia ago in the land of Canaan when a young child returned to
his parents camp after tending the birth of a lamp to find that they had
been slaughtered by bandits. Angrily the child cried out against the gods.
Displeased with the child's anger the gods manifested themselves and
challenged the child to what they should do. The quick thinking boy struck
a deal with the gods that they might lend him a portion each of their
defining powers so that he might protect the innocent and weak. With the
strength of Voldar, wisdom of Lumiun, speed of Arel, power of Ribalvei,
courage of Elbiam and the stamina of Martzoah he was transformed into the
Champion. Fighting against bandits and evil doers he made the lands around
a safe place to live. But he became complacent as the local people treated
him as a god and was easy prey to a demoness who blinded him with lust.
From their union was produced the twin evils of Satanus and Blaze.
Punished by his gods he set out once more in his mission and with their
help he used giant rocks from both heaven and hell to contain the Three
Faces of Evil.
Eventually the
Champion or Shazam (as he had become known) became a mighty wizard and
allied himself with the pharaohs of Egypt. He selected Teth-Adam to become
his successor but during the process of granting him power Blaze
intervened with the god Set and gave him powers stolen from the Egyptian
gods instead. At first Adam was a force for good but eventually he was
turned to evil and Shazam was forced to draw the energy from him into the
Scarab necklace. He then entombed the body of Adam and the Scarab out of
harms way. Then for centuries Shazam wondered the world until he came to
Fawcett City with the help of the Baston family whom he had met on an
archaeological dig. Still looking for a
successor he set himself up in a deserted subway station. However he put
off his search as he battled the forces of evil with the help of the
cities many war time defenders, including Ibis, Bulletman, Minute Man, Spy
Smasher and many more. When Blaze set free the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man
Shazam defeated them with help from the allies and then imprisoned the
evils inside ridiculous shells as punishments. Then Ibis returned to his
sleep and at the behest of the wizard used his Ibis-Stick to slow the
march of time around Fawcett keeping the architecture unaltering, slowing
ageing and preventing demonic influence in Fawcett. Shortly afterwards
Shazam was taken by surprise by a thug and knocked out. With amnesia he
wandered the city until he was taken in by Clarence Charles Baston. His
memory restored he set about creating the spell that would transform
Baston into his successor. The Egyptian
government decided to dam the Nile at Aswan with the effect that the
Temple of Rameses II at Abu Simbel would be engulfed by the water.
Multi-millionaire Thaddeus Sivana funded an expedition comprising the
husband and wife team of Clarence Charles and Marilyn Baston along with
Theo Adam (actually the latent reincarnation of Teth Adam) who was
Sivana's hired thug. The idea that the Baston's would supply detailed
guidelines to reproduce the temple at the World's Fair that Sivana was
organizing in Fawcett City while they got funding for their archaeological
digs, however unknown to them Sivana was using Adam to steal and loot and
finds for his own private collection before they were handed over to the
proper Egyptian Authorities. The trio discovered
a hidden tomb within the temple and a fabulous jeweled Scarab contained
inside. While touching the Scarab Theo Adam was awakened briefly to his
real identity as Teth-Adam aka Black Adam. Adam killed C. C. Baston
(preventing Shazam recruiting him) while his wife managed to make a run
for it with part of the neck lace that was part of the Scarab. He tracked
her down and murdered her as well but not before she hid the rest of the
necklace in a stuffed toy owned by her daughter Mary. Adam kidnapped Mary
and had her put up anonymously for adoption to remove her as a witness.
Then he returned to the US to deliver the Scarab to his employer Sivana. With the death of
the Batsons their son Billy was kicked out onto the street by his step
uncle Ebenezer Baston who took the inheritance for himself. Homeless,
Billy resorted to selling newspapers on street corners to make a living in
the evenings while attending school in the day time. He was contacted by
the spirit of his deceased father who led him to the wizard Shazam who
transformed Billy into Captain Marvel to be his replacement. Initially
Billy was horrified by being transformed into an adult but he found that
he was able to use his powers to capture Black Adam. Captain Marvel was
unwilling to seek vengeance on Adam and it was left to the wizard to strip
him of the ability to seek, and therefore say the name SHAZAM and
transform himself back into Black Adam. Young Billy found
himself manipulated by the villain Darkseid into giving up his Captain
Marvel identity during the Anti-Hero Riots however with the help of a
young girl he managed to regain his confidence after thinking that he had
killed somebody (in truth an elaborate illusion by Darkseid) and he agreed
to join Doctor Fate as a founding member of a new Justice League. Marvel
stayed with the League until the point where they turned into the Justice
League International when he found that he had to quit due to the
increased responsibility on top of trying to keep a full school life.
Captain Marvel continued protecting Fawcett City and Billy continued at
his school and he found that he became quite famous as a superhero. Captain Marvel was
manipulated into fighting Wonder Woman by the Roman Gods during the War of
the Gods caused by the sorceress Circle. The battle was stopped by the Son
of Vulcan with the result that the spell that had created Captain Marvel
was destroyed. During the course of the War the gods that granted
abilities to Billy were killed and their essences placed into the shells
on the Metal Men. Then Shazam combined fractions of these essences
together again to create Captain Marvel once again. With the war over
Billy once again returned to his normal day to day life. The spell that kept
Fawcett unchanging was threatened when the demoness Blaze used Sinclair
Baston to create a new building drive in the city thereby countering the
effects of the spell. While Shazam and Billy searched for Billy's sister
Mary. They eventually found her quite accidentally during a spelling
contest that Billy was hosting for Whiz Radio (the radio station that he
worked for in his spare time). Mary had been adopted by the Broomfields
and she received a mysterious package that contained a Tawky Tawny doll,
to her surprise it came to life (actually it was a Pooka animated by
Satanus as a weapon against his sister Blaze) and revealed to her that she
too could be transformed into a female Captain Marvel by speaking the
wizard's name. The Captain's
Marvel faced a serious threat when Nazi scientist Dr Wolf Krieger managed
to awaken his brother Albrecht from cryogenic sleep to begin his reign of
terror as Captain Nazi once more. While rampaging through a bank to
finance his schemes Nazi was confronted by Captain Marvel, during the
course of the battle young Freddy Freeman (general sports wise and all
round nice guy) was crippled and his grandfather killed. In the end Nazi
was captured because he had no resistance to the modern version of the
flu. Freddy was transformed into Captain Marvel Jr. when Billy and Mary
lent him a portion of their own power so that he might at least spend some
part of the time fit. However Freddy would have serious problems with
Captain Nazi with a tendency to go after him at any cost, it would be
sometime before he fully worked through his grief. Blaze took the
opportunity of the distraction of Freddy to capture Shazam and release
Black Adam whom she manipulated by holding his sister's soul prisoner.
With Shazam gone the Marvels tracked down Ibis with the help of Mr. Tawny,
Mr. Dudley (who was transformed into a strange Uncle Marvel figure briefly)
and Bulletman. Together they battled the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man and
managed to recapture them before finally imprisoning Blaze with the Three
Faces of Evil within the Rock of Eternity. In the aftermath Ibis took
Shazam's place in the Rock so that he might see the real world for a time
once more, Mr. Tawny was granted true life by the Ibis stick and Black Adam
was banished to a distant star in punishment. Sarge Steel
recruited Captain Marvel to go to Venus using a Mother Box to track down a
lost space craft commanded by Magnificus Sivana that had disappeared. When
he got there he found that they had crashed onto an asteroid inhabited by
sentient worms who had struck a deal with Dr Sivana to take over the
world. While Mary had to deal with a scout worm sent to Earth that was
mind controlling Sinclair and then Ebenezer Baston, Billy managed to
defeat the worms and destroy them all, but in the process he and Sivana
were scattered across space and time. Billy was rescued by Shazam from the
depths of space and the space craft and crew reappeared in Washington at
the other end of a Boom Tube created by Mother Box as she sacrificed
herself to save them. Dr Sivana managed
to alter time so that Mary and Billy's parents were not murdered and he
retained his wealth eventually becoming Mayor of Fawcett City. In this
alternate timeline it was C. C and Marilyn Baston that became the two
Captains Marvel rather than their children. This alteration in the
timestream was noticed by the wizard and with the help of the Linear Men
they convinced C. C. Baston to restore the correct timeline to preserve
causality even through it meant denying their family normality. In the
aftermath Mary adopted the white costume used by her mother and a will was
found allowing Billy to be also adopted by the Broomfields who also find
out about the Captains Marvel in due course. Now in the wake of
Genesis Mary and Billy are in a stable family home with the Broomfields,
who know about their magical transformations into the Captains Marvel
leaving them free to fight injustice (outside of school time), battle evil
(as long as the homework's done) and to be the proud defenders of Fawcett
City. Notes:
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